Things I might never have said except on the internets

I wish I had made this t-shirt!

2008-07-14T09:42:00.001-04:00

R.I.P. George Carlin, 1937-2008

2008-06-23T02:09:00.002-04:00

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfucker
Tits

(He was right, the last one never made any sense).

To the bartender who works Wendesday afternoons at The Max Canada

2008-06-19T01:06:00.005-04:00

Go fuck yourself!

Are you retarded?

Do you really think you are too cool for school with your 1991 style grunge haircut, musical selections, and shitty attitude?

Do you really think you are helping yourself (and more importantly the owners of the bar where you 'work') by refusing to accommodate the polite request from the nine of us who were the only patrons present (besides your douchebag buddy) that you turn down the music to a level low enough to allow normal conversation?

Do you really think I wouldn't find out about the sneering and jeering your ugly face expressed after I turned around?

Do you think I was bullshitting you when I said that I really like Sonic Youth (but please turn the stereo down for the nine of us, your only customers, who just want to be able to have a conversation, please, especially since we are the only ones in the bar)? At least I would have the taste not to play the 'Washing Machine' album, dumbass.

Well, no worries. We won't be back.

los gringos jóvenes

2008-05-20T08:57:00.007-04:00

It's almost 8 a.m., the hour I was waiting for, to go to the post office. You see, I often wake up early, unable to resume sleep, and it seems that this is doubly so while on vacation here in Mexico.

We plan on going here (and hopefully other places also) today:

Yesterday we went here (among other places; full disclosure- the place revealed in this photo is very close to our hotel...)

(images might be f'd up... Blogger's automated image insertion is taking way too long on this thing... might have to fix em later...)

(update 14 July 2008, finally edited said images...)

we´re here

2008-05-18T09:59:00.002-04:00

... in D.F. (Mexico City)... Everything is fun and exciting and crazy... I´m on the annoying Hotel computer and I can´t upload any pictures with it and I need to go back to our room... so maybe more later.

we're leaving today!

2008-05-17T09:50:00.002-04:00

1. I don't know why I've been so lazy about blogging lately. I guess I was preoccupied with grading final exams and then getting final grades in. Then I was worried about making final plans and preparations for our trip as well as writing an article for a call for papers due June 1st, and (in theory) interpreting at least a little bit because, you know, money doesn't grow on trees.

2. So, today, in about five hours, Holly and I are leaving for Mexico for two weeks, for what should be an excellent vacation.

3. Perhaps, then, as we hit up the many fine "cybercafes" (there must be a better term for them, no?) during our trip, I'll blog some more. Perhaps not.

I thought this was pretty funny...

2008-05-12T06:51:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Wired's Gadget Lab blog for bringing this to my attention.

Rock Trivia

2008-04-08T20:03:00.002-04:00

We won last night. By six points. I'm told that's "a lot" in Rock Trivia. For real.

Let's cut through all the bullshit re: immigration.

2008-04-08T10:14:00.003-04:00

No big surprise here that these are not my own words, but anyway, here is a quote from a recent posting on Alternet. Here is almost but not quite the entire piece:

Enough with the "my ancestors did it the legal way" argument! Of course your grandparents came here legally 50-300 years ago; no real immigration laws existed at that point. Unless you were a criminal or Chinese (re: Chinese Exclusion Act), once you landed in America, you were legally here. Sure, there were ethnic groups in the early 20th century that entered illegally due to the racist immigration quotas against them. So what did the American government do when 1.2 million of these immigrants were found living here illegally? Well, something that would be called amnesty today.

The 12 million that arrived at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 mostly stayed put for only 4-5 hours before they were dispersed to other parts of the country. Only 1-2% of immigrants were turned away due to insanity, criminal offense, or medical reasons.

So yes, most of the "grandparents waited in line and came here legally" after some hours, compared to the minimum of 10 years it takes a U.S. citizen today to petition for a married son or daughter (and twice as long if the married son or daughter is from Mexico or the Phillipines). And immigration laws forbid (not), if you petition for your child, grandchild or niece/nephew when s/he is 12 and s/he is well over 21 by the time her/his priority number becomes current, s/he is no longer eligible in the same category!

The strict and rigid immigration game of today cannot be compared to simply boarding a ship and landing in America like most ancestors of U.S. citizens did in the yesteryears. Therefore, please, no more family histories of legal immigration from an era when legal/illegal didn't matter. It is irrelevant and nonsensical.

Amen to that! Or, as Robert Orben put it: "Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."

That is not to say that there may not be valid debates to be had regarding our immigration policies, but there is no reason to be smug just because you were born in the U.S., and there is no reason to think that your ancestors came here "legally" if such a concept did not exist when they came here.

It's true!

2008-04-07T06:07:00.003-04:00

(Click on image to see larger version, or just click to see it on Salon, where I got the image from...)

Tom Tomorrow rules.

I couldn't possibly agree more.

2008-04-06T10:34:00.003-04:00

Though I have already "shared" it via Google Reader, I found this to be, no hyberbole here, a masterpiece, and I completely agree with the sentiment. The feature length films that have been made based on Dr. Seuss books totally suck, and are travesties.

Stop Making Movies About My Books

On the fourteenth of March, in towns nationwide, In every cinema, multiplex, on every barnside, Gleamed another adapting of...

It's april!

2008-04-04T08:44:00.002-04:00

And I haven't blogged in what seems like forever. Well, nothing going on really, except that there's really only about three weeks left in the semester. (I know-- Georgia starts and ends really early, the high, middle, and primary schools do too.) So, I'm pretty stoked about that.

Also-- and I am BEYOND stoked about this, we (Holly and I) are going to Mexico for the 2nd half of May! That's right, two weeks! Well spend some time in D.F. (that's Mexico City), Cuernavaca, Oaxaca, and Ixtapa. It should be a truly excellent vacation! Although this was not part of our original plan (the dates are the ones they are because of the air fare we found), it will coincide with our sixth wedding anniversary.

Holy fucking shit!

2008-03-27T13:20:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've used such gratuitous profanity in a subject line, but I just learned of some news that definitely merits it, and in a good way! Mr. Show with Bob and David is the greatest sketch comedy show of all time, but its run ended almost ten years ago now.

Well, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, the two main comedic brains behind the show, as well as main cast members, are going to have another show on HBO! I totally read about it on Wired's "Underwire" blog but Bob and David themselves also have a post announcing the same on their site.

This is very good news indeed!

This will totally make you LOL! :)

2008-03-27T12:27:00.001-04:00

Thanks again to the mighty Chunklet!

Cheryl Underwood is funny

2008-03-10T12:49:00.002-04:00

Holly came home for lunch today and is watching the DVR of The View and they had this really funny black commedian on, Cheryl Underwood, who just said something like, "I love George Bush... you know why? Because everybody's afraid of us 'cause they know a crazy-ass hillbilly is in the White House!" You got that right!

Hillary and Barack need to ride it out and focus all that hate on the enemy

2008-03-05T18:36:00.002-05:00

From AlterNet:

We might be getting to the point where political considerations of party unity might force both Clinton and Obama onto the ticket for the fall. In fact, as was often suggested by her campaign before Obama's string of February victories, Clinton suggests that by voting for her, Democrats can get Obama, too:

Asked on CBS's The Early Show whether she and Obama should be on the same ticket, Clinton said: "That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket."

To a certain extent, this feels like an attempt at placating Obama supporters. However, it also seems more apparent that neither Clinton nor Obama currently have a clear majority of the Democratic coalition behind them, and both might need the other to unite the party. Then again, after both candidates have decried the other's judgment and / or ability to handle national emergencies and major foreign policy decisions, does an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket make sense anymore? It is a little hard to swallow for a candidate to imply that someone would not be a good President, and then turn around and put that person in a position to become President.

This is a bit of a mess. One thing I will say is if Clinton wants to imply that she will pick Obama to be Vice-President, she should stop implying that Obama couldn't handle a national emergency. That is just disingenuous, since usually vice-Presidents become presidents in the case of a national emergency. If Clinton really wants Obama to be her VP, then she stop offering reasons why he would not be a good VP.

Word.
Source article here.

Good bye Brett!

2008-03-05T06:52:00.002-05:00

I am not a sports fan. However, I am from Wisconsin, which makes me a Packers fan by default. And, thanks to the Packers winning ways in the mid and late 90s, I really grew to appreciate how good life can be hanging out with friends and sharing some beers for the game (on TV.)

Anyway, the great Brett Favre has finally announced his retirement. I had hoped that he maybe would have one more last chance for one more Superbowl season after this past season's close-but-no-cigar ending. Alas- it is not meant to be I guess.

Packer fans the world over are a little bit sad today, even though we understand you can't be a quarterback forever. We'll miss ya Brett!

it's tornado weather!

2008-03-04T13:11:00.002-05:00

And I like it!

In other words, Apple is no different than MicroSoft.

2008-02-29T13:05:00.003-05:00

I know it's not exactly earth shattering news, but still, it's very interesting. To me it is anyway.
From Wired's "compiler" blog:

In an effort to make Firefox 3 faster on a Mac, Mozilla developer Vladimir Vukićević stumbled across several private, undocumented APIs used by competitor Safari. The good news is that Vukićević was able to fix the Firefox 3 bug he was after using a publicly documented method, but the existence of the hidden APIs have already led many to conclude the Apple is unfairly crippling non-Apple software.

To be clear, that’s not what Vukićević thinks, but with Microsoft having long been accused of doing the same, it’s not surprising that the conspiracy claim is making the rounds on Slashdot and elsewhere....

Slashdot conspiracy theorists aside, Vukićević has point when he writes that developers have much “more reason to complain when they use something undocumented that changes in the future, vs. using something that’s explicitly documented to be subject to change.”...

Bullshit! I says: Bullshit! The word "conspiracy" may not be applicable here, but it does seem kind of like the exact same thing that Apple, Netscape, and others were whining about circa ten years ago with regard to MicroSoft and Internutz Exploder.

awesome vintage German pop culture, found by me via Chunklet

2008-02-28T21:00:00.001-05:00

source link

and another thing

2008-02-25T22:09:00.003-05:00

I know I neglected to lament the other recent university campus shooting spree, in DeKalb, Illinois. (The "s" is silent... and the "l" in DeKalb is silent if you are from the South.) I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say about it... I feel a little numb.

And I feel conflicted. I don't own any guns, and I don't plan on ever owning any either. But I know people (who aren't crazy, and who do so legally) who do. I also want to be able to go to a shooting range and have at it one of these days.

On the other hand, it seems like the rather limited controls we do have are not uniformly applied throughout our grand republic, far too often resulting in tragedy. If accepting even more limits on our "right to bear arms" means we could avoid these sorts of mass killings, then I'm all for it. It's been said probably millions of times: if it can work for England, (and others), then why not here?

To paraphrase an anonymous classmate from my undergraduate years (the class was theory and practice of argumentation and debate):

I don't think our founding fathers intended our right to bear arms to enable us to be able to reenact the Revolutionary War in our back yard.

I agree.

From the Onion

2008-02-25T22:02:00.002-05:00

... so you know it's true! (wink) Or, as Henry Rollins dramatized it during his lengthy monologue the other night (talking about the allegations of Diebold™ machines "erasing" votes and other recent electoral shenanigans, me paraphrasing):

"What the fuck happened to my vote?"
"You voted for the wrong guy, that's what the fuck happened to your vote! You voted for health care and literacy... Gayboy!"

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

more on Nader...

2008-02-25T13:07:00.001-05:00

It seems that indeed, the majority of left-leaning "progressive" folks do think that Nader is a doofus and should not run.

Statement by “Ralph Don’t Run” on Nader’s 2008 Candidacy Announcement

We’re saddened but not surprised by Ralph Nader’s announcement. The important point, however, is this: only one person can make Nader relevant in 2008. Hillary Clinton. If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, Nader will be even more invisible and irrelevant than he was in 2004. The ultimate irony of the situation is this: both the Republicans and Ralph Nader are desperately rooting for Hillary Clinton as their best hope for 2008. We hope, and expect, that both will be disappointed.

-John Pearce, Director, RalphDontRun.com

What an asshole!

2008-02-24T22:04:00.003-05:00

I hope he's not really a spoiler, because apparently, Ralph Nader has decided to run for president again. One thing's for sure, if, god forbid, the Democrats don't win this year, he'll get the blame again. Maybe someone, or perhaps a campaign of concerned citizens emailing him, may convince him to withdraw... but I doubt it.

I went over to Nader's campaign website and sent a message asking him to withdraw immmediately, and explaining the obvious reasons why I think he should (McCain is all to happy to stay in Iraq forever, let alone bomb Iran, we finally seem to have enough momentum to make a Democratic victory in November inevitable, etc.) I'm really not sure it will do any good but I am convinced that it can't hurt. To the five or so people that read this I urge you to do the same, go there and send him a message asking him to withdraw for the good of our country.

read the reader

2008-02-21T07:03:00.002-05:00

The five or so of you who visit my humble blog regularly will no doubt have noticed by now that on the right hand margin of the page appears a list of links labeled "model consumer's shared items".

I've started using Google Reader, to keep track of a few different blogs/news sources (some of them I don't consider blogs as such). It's excellent. The idea of syndication/news readers is brilliant in and of itself, but Google, as usual, has a very good web-based implementation of it. So, those links represent items I've read (or at least scanned attentively) that I thought were rather interesting. Feel free to either share these with me, or ignore them, as you see fit.